A collection of recent and new works in collaborative dialogue

A collection of recent and new works in collaborative dialogue by Natasha Harrison and Maggie Nowinski. Showing together again for the first time in a decade, these artists and colleagues have come together after observing a confluence of refrains with relation to their current studio explorations. These parallels are evidenced in the forms, imagery and conceptual terrain in their current works. Informed by botanical, biological, microscopic and overarching patterns in living systems and bodies, Harrison and Nowinski come together with their material languages. Included in the conversation will be works in glass, paper, drawings, moss, collage, sculpture, sound, printmaking, pollen, flowers, other mixed medias and wall installation.

This group exhibition will be shown at the Institute of Contemporary Art, MECA for the February 1 – March 4, 2017 exhibition with a reception on Friday, February 3rdRead more about it here:http://artnewengland.com/ed_review/telephone-exhibition-the-unity-of-opposites/

I was invited to participate in the Northampton Ice Carving Festival. In planning for the event I became most interested in the experience of exploring a new medium and in the act of creating something on the spot in public for a specific duration of 6 hours. The process of creating the piece, and dealing with unexpected technical and feel issues inspired a kind of performative play in my approach. Interactions with the public about abstraction and creative process often surprises me and for the most part I found people to be interested seeing the transformation and even embracing the ambiguity of the sculpture's form as it developed.

In this ongoing project, Antipyretic Abductions, focus is directed at what happens in the aftermath of consumptive transactions. This residual stage of internalization is an imagined space inhabited by drawings of creature-like characters, inspired by anatomical organs, somatic systems, micro-organisms and botanical diagrams. They are immersed in a process, post-ingestion, of internal transformation and renewal. I conjure a relationship in which I both ingest and observe the activities in the depths of my body and turn these fictionalizations inside out not only for others to ingest and process, but also to expose and free them to interact and consume the external world. Their origin comes from my body, but their endurance is leashed to a relationship of absorption and regurgitation.

Creating work for this show over the last six months, I have observed and absorbed as the work of Alicia Renadette and Torsten Zenas Burns has evolved for eat me alive. We have exchanged inquiries through source imagery, ideas, making process sculptures together to engage with and respond to each other’s work, and performed research through semi-improvised actions for video on field trips curated by Torsten. As the work finally comes together on site in the gallery, digestion and observation, and seeing these works from the inside call fully commence and the exchange continues.

Consumption, Anxiety, Internalization

I am recently acting as an observer to the affects of these habits. In the current era of the anthropocene, these innocent, slightly perverse beings float, interact, reproduce and morph, unintentionally nourished by human practices. They are not malicious, but are a fictionalized playful evolutionary response to daily ingestions of ideals, products and technology. Anxiety fed mutants subsisting in a sea of pure white or amidst the pigment stains of over-the-counter pain medication (OTC/NSAIDs).

Equating consumption with the intake of toxic substances, ideals and norms, antipyretic refers to something that brings down a fever, such as Tylenol or Advil. These pigments became a landscape from which creatures spawned and evolved.

Medical, Fossils, Botanical

While medical and botanical illustrations as well as photographs of living and fossilized sea creatures are among my source imagery, I stray from making direct copies in favor of fictionalized imagery that plays with the beautiful and the grotesque. The process of making these drawings is about observing and studying these forms as they emerge.

The drawings explore slowness through line. While my practice has always included drawing my focus on it has intensified. They are made with pen and ink on paper and semi-transparent drafting films. Some of the drawings are layered, photographed and turned into composites, which are then transferred to intaglio prints through a photopolymer, aquatint process of printmaking. Other composites are blown up large scale to interact with the viewers’ space, provoking the sensation that these characters are now ingesting the viewer or the viewer has also been ingested.

Initially, the title Antipyretic Abductions was inspired by idea of experimentation and creativity. The 19th Century philosopher and mathematician Charles Peirce wrote: “…abduction is the process of forming explanatory hypotheses. It is the only logical operation which introduces any new idea”.

Pioneer Women, an exhibition curated by by Terry Rooney comes to MAP in June. The opening reception coincides with Art Walk on June 13, from 5-8PM. Pioneer Women includes over 20 artists of the Pioneer Valley who explore "new frontiers in art". The exhibition will be open from June 6 - 28, at 116 Pleasant Street, Rm 137 Easthampton, MA. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 1-4 p.m.

By way of appropriated and improvised ritual, craigslist, humor and the act of wishing, Wish Tower address notions of the wish and wish granting along with singularity and collectivity through a process of letting go.

Eleven-year-old Tajahn Joyner said, “It’s really cool. I didn’t get to see art much (at museums.”)

He and many of his fellow students were particularly awed by the work of Easthampton artist Margaret Nowinski, whose plastic bottle display called “Swallowed” sparked environmental concerns from the students. The art displays hundreds of water bottles to show the paradox of the need to drink, yet how the plastic from the bottles is polluting the world and the people who drink from the bottles.

“It shows people you need to recycle more to save the environment,” Tajahn said. Nowinski collected the bottles from various sites and a video records her adventures.